Art Projects: Peace Banners

Some cities hold peace banner contests.

Inspire your peers or community to get along and respect one another by making a peace banner for your school, church or organization. Children from kindergarten to 12th grade can take on this project as well as college students and adult volunteers. Hopefully your peace banner will not only encourage peace among those who see it but also among those that work together to create it.

Slogan

When designing a peace banner, the first thing you need to do is come up with a slogan that conveys your peace message and inspires people to get along. If you want peace in a war zone, use the popular 1960s slogan, "Make love, not war." Peace banners that are meant to bring communities together can use the "All for one, one for all," from Alexandre Dumas' novel, The Three Musketeers. The Beatles song title, "All You Need is Love," also makes a good peace banner slogan. You can also make up your slogan, such as "Hope," "Love" or "Goodwill towards man."

Symbols

Next, you need to decide on a peace symbol for your banner. Classic peace symbols include the peace sign, which consists of circle, upside down V and vertical line, or the V hand signal created when the palm faces outwards and all your fingers are closed except your index and middle finger. Or you can use the broken rifle symbol, white dove, olive branch, olive wreath, rainbow, a giant heart or dove carrying an olive branch. You can also draw or paint people holding hands to show unity, hands holding the Earth, or people hugging.

Colors

To make your peace banner eye catching, you need to use colors. However, colors come with different meaning and invoke certain emotions, so choose your colors wisely. Multicolor tie-dye invoke the peace movement of the 1960s. The combination of red, white and blue shows represents democracy and patriotism. Democracy is often linked to peace. The color blue inspires feelings of tranquility and trust and signifies peace. Ivory and beige symbolize unification and bring about feelings of calm and quietness, while purple represents wisdom and enlightenment, which are important elements to peace. Stay away from using a lot of black since it stands for anger, death and mourning, and use the color red carefully because it can invoke love and passion or anger and violence.

Demostrate Peace

Peace banners are a group effort. The creators must practice what they preach by respectfully exchanging ideas, working cohesively together, cooperating with one another, communicating clearly and compromising. Everyone needs to assume a role---whether it's coming up with the conception, doing the lettering, drawing or painting---and fulfill their duty. By working peacefully together, you add an intangible peace element to your banner. Hopefully, your actions will inspire people to work together just as much as the peace banner itself.

References

• SalsaNet and the South Central Texas Chapter of the Internet Society : Peace Symbols
• Princeton Online: Color Symbolism and Culture

Resources

• Global Art Project for Peace: 2008 Gallery